Travel back in time

Atari releases the Namco-developed arcade video game Dig Dug in the United States. The game’s release is accompanied by an elaborate theatrical trailer, a rarity for any video game, then or now. (more…)

Konami introduces the arcade game Loco Motion in the United States, one of its earliest self-released coin-ops (most titles had previously been licensed through Stern). (more…)

Released a couple of years after the movie that inspired it, Parker Brothers’ The Empire Strikes Back for the Atari VCS is the very first official Star Wars video game to hit the market. Though games inspired by the movies have been appearing since the first film was still in theaters, this is the first game officially licensed by Lucasfilm. It pits players against an endless onslaught of Imperial Walkers (and unlike the movie’s rebels, the player has no chance of surviving indefinitely). (more…)

Gottlieb introduces the arcade game Reactor in the United States, a unique trackball-driven game with thumping synthesized hard rock musical accompaniment. (more…)

In a federal court hearing in Chicago, Atari and Midway – as the American licensees of Pac-Man – are victorious over Magnavox, whose Odyssey² cartridge K.C. Munchkin was alleged to infringe on Pac-Man. The court ruling, which results in an injunction forcing Magnavox to pull K.C. Munchkin off the market, says it “captures the ‘total concept and feel’ of, and is substantially similar to, Pac-Man,” and that Magnavox “jeopardized the substantial investments of Midway and especially Atari.” Beaten but defiant, Magnavox releases a K.C. Munchkin sequel later in the year.

ABC airs the 24th episode of Stephen J. Cannell’s superhero comedy series The Greatest American Hero, starring William Katt, Connie Sellecca, and Robert Culp.

More about The Greatest American Hero in theLogBook.com Store

The Soviet Union’s unmanned Venera 14 space probe successfully lands on the planet Venus, its landing module enduring almost an hour in temperatures of nearly 900 degrees Fahrenheit and air pressure nearly 100 times that experienced at sea level on Earth. A soil sampling experiment is thwarted by an unforseen problem, namely the lens cap of Venera 14’s camera popping off and landing precisely where its sampling arm was designed to gather Venusian soil for testing.

The 572nd episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. What most fans don’t realize, thanks to a carefully coordinated reveal, is that Earthshock is the first Cyberman story since 1975’s Revenge Of The Cybermen. The Cybermen are only seen at the end of part one, and producer John Nathan-Turner declines the potentially valuable offer of a Radio Times magazine front cover in order to preserve the surprise. (more…)

The Stateside arm of Japanese video game maker Data East releases the arcade game Disco No. 1 in the United States, having apparently missed the memo announcing that disco is dead. (more…)

The legendarily tough arcade game Robotron: 2084, designed by Eugene Jarvis (creator of Defender), hits arcades across America and becomes an instant hit. With its two joysticks – one for moving the player’s character, one for firing in any direction – Robotron continues Williams’ hallmark of challenging control schemes, and screws with the fight-or-flight responses of arcade gamers everywhere for years to come. (more…)

Sega introduces the cult classic arcade game Zaxxon, significantly raising the bar for arcade graphics with its three-quarter isometric 3-D view (and making it nearly impossible to translate faithfully to home video game consoles of the era). Though this new perspective doesn’t make Zaxxon easy to play, it becomes one of the first video games that players line up just to look at. (more…)

Atari releases the home version of the popular arcade game Phoenix for the Atari 2600 home video game console. (more…)

ABC airs the third episode of the cop show spoof Police Squad, in color, starring Leslie Nielsen and created by the Zucker-Abrams-Zucker team behind the hit movie Airplane! Robert Goulet and Tommy LaSorda guest star. (more…)

The testing phase of the shuttle program continues as Space Shuttle Columbia lifts off for her third flight into space. With Commander Jack Lousma and Pilot C. Gordon Fullerton aboard, Columbia stays in orbit for over a week, testing the orbiter’s endurance to heat at different angles to the sun, as well as testing the unmanned Spacelab experiment pallets in the cargo bay. This is the first shuttle flight to end on the contingency landing site at White Sands, New Mexico.

After an extremely short development period and industry insider warnings that the finished product wasn’t ready for prime time, Atari releases Tod Frye’s home version of Pac-Man for the Atari VCS, selling record numbers… and, within weeks, becomes the subject of bad word-of-mouth and critical slams on its weak game play and graphics. At the urging of Atari CEO Ray Kassar, Pac-Man‘s print run exceeds the number of VCS consoles sold to date, since it’s anticipated that the Pac-crazed public will buy the console simply because Pac-Man is available for it. (more…)

ABC airs the fourth episode of the cop show spoof Police Squad, in color, starring Leslie Nielsen and created by the Zucker-Abrams-Zucker team behind the hit movie Airplane! William Shatner (Barbary Coast, T.J. Hooker) and Dr. Joyce Brothers guest star. The series is cancelled after this episode’s broadcast, leaving two episodes to be shown in July. (more…)

The 578th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Anthony Ainley appears as the Master; Nigel Stock also guest stars in a story shot in and around a real Concorde supersonic jetliner.

This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
Order Earl Green’s book VWORP!1 from theLogBook.com Store